Provinciale Statenverkiezingen 2023

How do political campaigns target voters?

Methodology

In collaboration with Who Targets Me, we monitored over 900 Dutch political advertisers during the 2023 Provinciale Statenverkiezingen (Provincial elections) to better understand how campaigns use different targeting methods made available by Meta. To do this, we used data from the Meta Ad Library, using the new ‘Audience’ data which gives some detail on how pages target their ads.

To better understand the regional election, we kept only advertisers who:

  1. Advertised in the last 7 days (February 27th - March 5th 2023)
  2. Advertised in the last 30 days (February 4th - March 5th 2023)

Note: Meta only provides 7, 30 and 90 days windows for the targeting data in their Ad Library. Meta’s data also lags by a few days. We will update this report as soon as new data is available.

Topline Statistics

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

In total, political parties spend €236,055 and ran 3031 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

SP

10


1. SP (€40,971)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€3,780)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€327)

308

€45,778

PvdA

22


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€24,995)
2. PvdA Noord Holland (€5,398)
3. PvdA Limburg (€3,312)

295

€42,412

GroenLinks

8


1. GroenLinks (€34,443)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€1,090)
3. Jesse Klaver (€750)

98

€37,103

CDA

19


1. CDA Noord-Holland (€5,478)
2. CDA (€5,281)
3. CDA Provincie Utrecht (€2,388)

208

€19,874

Volt Nederland

1


1. Volt Nederland (€17,099)

499

€17,099

FvD

3


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€16,024)
2. Wybren van Haga (€797)
3. Forum voor Democratie Zeeland (€100)

17

€16,921

VVD

26


1. VVD (€6,297)
2. Limburgse VVD (€2,848)
3. VVD Flevoland (€2,498)

344

€16,444

PvdD

9


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€6,699)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€1,084)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Rijnland (€616)

191

€9,505

PVV

6


1. Geert Wilders (€4,623)
2. PVV Fryslan (€248)
3. PVV Enschede (€196)

36

€5,394

BVNL

1


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€4,536)

38

€4,536

Ja21

1


1. Ja21 (€4,150)

261

€4,150

ChristenUnie

10


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€1,500)
2. ChristenUnie Noord-Holland (€701)
3. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€579)

120

€3,626

DENK

2


1. DENK (€3,041)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€433)

383

€3,474

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€2,184)
2. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€550)
3. 50PLUSFlevoland (€506)

61

€3,395

D66

7


1. D66 (€1,376)
2. D66 Overijssel (€599)
3. D66 Zeeland (€210)

110

€2,605

SGP

4


1. SGP (€855)
2. SGP provincie Gelderland (€639)
3. SGP Zeeland (€399)

45

€1,993

Alliantie

2


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€1,646)
2. Alliantie (€100)

17

€1,746

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)

In total, political parties spend €124,979 and ran 2181 ad copies on Meta in this timeframe.

Number of Advertisers Top Spenders Number of Ads Total Spend

GroenLinks

6


1. GroenLinks (€19,018)
2. GroenLinks Brabant (€958)
3. Jesse Klaver (€750)

73

€21,307

PvdA

17


1. Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (€11,348)
2. PvdA Noord Holland (€2,544)
3. PvdA Zuid-Holland (€1,801)

191

€20,703

CDA

15


1. CDA Noord-Holland (€5,478)
2. CDA Provincie Utrecht (€2,388)
3. CDA Limburg (€2,212)

181

€13,997

Volt Nederland

1


1. Volt Nederland (€12,219)

498

€12,219

SP

8


1. SP (€9,854)
2. Lilian Marijnissen (€1,661)
3. SP Noord-Brabant (€176)

156

€12,191

FvD

2


1. Forum voor Democratie -FVD (€8,976)
2. Wybren van Haga (€714)

10

€9,690

VVD

20


1. VVD (€2,721)
2. Limburgse VVD (€2,348)
3. VVD Flevoland (€844)

275

€8,753

PvdD

9


1. Partij voor de Dieren (€6,489)
2. Partij voor de Dieren Noord-Holland (€885)
3. Partij voor de Dieren Rijnland (€294)

169

€8,524

BVNL

1


1. Belang van Nederland - BVNL (€3,823)

29

€3,823

ChristenUnie

10


1. ChristenUnie Flevoland (€1,085)
2. ChristenUnie Fryslân (€333)
3. ChristenUnie Noord-Holland (€232)

90

€2,396

50PLUS

4


1. 50PLUSpartij (€1,284)
2. 50PLUSFlevoland (€447)
3. 50PLUS-Overijssel (€133)

39

€1,983

DENK

2


1. DENK (€1,478)
2. Mahmut Sungur DENK (€353)

249

€1,831

D66

6


1. D66 Overijssel (€599)
2. D66 (€576)
3. D66 Zeeland (€210)

46

€1,705

PVV

3


1. Geert Wilders (€1,485)
2. PVV Fryslan (€117)
3. PVV Hengelo (€100)

18

€1,702

SGP

4


1. SGP (€855)
2. SGP Zeeland (€399)
3. SGP Tholen (€100)

35

€1,454

Ja21

1


1. Ja21 (€1,428)

110

€1,428

Alliantie

1


1. Henriette van Hedel - Alliantie (€1,273)

12

€1,273

Spending per Targeting Criteria

How much did campaigns spend on different targeting methods?

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

Overall

By Party

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Overall

By Party

Top Targeted Audiences

Here, we show the top targeted audiences for each party (ranked by amount of Euro spend). Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”.

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Top Contested Audiences

Here, we show the top most contested audiences, i.e. where all parties have spent considerable amounts of money competing to reach voters with the same interests. Most (but not all) of these audiences are “interest” audiences, i.e. the parties targeted people interested in “Books” or “Politics”. In each row on the right hand side, you can see how much in total was spend on that specific target audience.

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Age Targeting

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Gender Targeting

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Education Targeting

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)

Job Targeting

February 4th - March 5th 2023 (Last 30 days)

February 27th - March 5th 2023 (Last 7 days)